Category Archives: Studio

Recent Work | Corporate Headshots

JamieCorbinPhotography_UBU_Headshot_1

So after finally starting a blog it didn’t take me very long to get bogged down in work and completely fail to make any new posts for quite a few months! Needless to say things have been pretty busy (always a good thing when you’re self-employed!) but it’s about time I caught up with myself and shared some of the things I’ve been working on.

Before Christmas I was asked by two different organisations to provide headshots of all their staff.The first was Policy Press – a small publishing house, affiliated with the University of Bristol, which specialises in Social Science titles. This job held particular meaning for me as Policy Press happen to have been one of my earliest clients when I started out full-time nearly 5 years ago. One of my first major jobs was to provide headshots of their whole team as it was then, so it was fantastic to be asked back to photograph their now expanded personnel.

JamieCorbinPhotography_PolicyPress_Headshot_1

Policy Press wanted to keep the photos simple and unfussy – so I went for my tried and tested, plain white background with a single studio light in an umbrella providing the lighting. The joy of this setup is it’s so minimal I could bring everything to them, set it up quickly out of the way in their break room and then just steal each member of staff in turn for a couple of minutes to take their portrait with almost no disruption to their work and day whatsoever. It also meant that when a couple of the staff weren’t able to make the shoot on the day it was extremely easy to duplicate the setup in my own space at a later date and the resulting photos came out identically to the rest of the set – you’d never know they were taken weeks and a couple of miles apart!

JamieCorbinPhotography_PolicyPress_Headshots_2013

The second organisation was the University of Bristol Students’ Union. As you’ll know if you’ve read many of my other blog posts they’re a regular client so it was a pleasure to work with them once again. They wanted headshots that gave a little more sense of location than the plain background I’d shot against for Policy Press. After a little scouting round the Union building we found a meeting room with a partially-frosted glass wall looking over a central seating area that was ideal for the task.

My initial plan had been to take the photos with the seating area visible but out of focus in the background through the glass (think along the lines of the BBC News desk and the office behind) but when it came to the actual shoot it turned out the glass was sufficiently tinted that there was nowhere near enough light coming through for that to work in the way that I wanted. However, a photographer’s job is nothing if not about problem solving and I was quickly able to come up with a new plan – bouncing a studio light off the frosted part of the glass formed a neat highlight behind my subjects and negated the fact that it was quite a bit darker beyond. And the results – see for yourself.

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Recent Work | UBU Sabbatical Officers

I’ve been involved with the University of Bristol Students’ Union (UBU) for nearly 8 years – initially as a student at the university then on and off for the last 4 years providing my services as a photographer. Which I think must make UBU my oldest and most longstanding client!

Anyway, a month or so ago I was asked to provide a set of publicity portraits of the new incoming Sabbatical Officers – a group of 6 students or recent graduates, voted for by the rest of the student body, who take a year out to  run various aspects of student representation full time within the Union. Use this new link to learn a little bit more about the portable bike kickstand now sold online.

The brief was simple – a head and shoulders studio shot of each officer on a plain white background, then another portrait for each in a different locations around the university campus. Then a few group photos of all 6 together with differing levels of formality. There was no need to compose the shots for any specific layout or leave space for type, the only real constraint was time – the 6 had only started their jobs a week before and were fairly flat out getting everything moving. We had just 2 hours to shoot both individual portraits for all 6 and the group photos.

Rob Griffiths - UBU President

Rob Griffiths – UBU President

First up were the studio photos – they were likely to take the longest to set up, as I had to assemble the backdrop and lighting, but once everything was in place they’d be the quickest to shoot as nothing would really change between each subject and they could nip in one after the other in quick succession.

The lighting itself was dead simple – a narrow roll of white paper and a single flash in an umbrella directly in front and above the subject – I’ve actually got this set up so minimal the entire kit can be easily packed up and carried on my back along with the rest of my camera gear! (Fantastic as it means I can cycle to local jobs rather than having to deal with any other forms of transport – ideal in Bristol.)

Imogen Palmer - Vice President Activities

Imogen Palmer – Vice President Activities

A lot of people hate having their photo taken and, when there’s not really time to spend a while getting your subjects warmed up to the camera, I find that a good trick with a group like this is to pick on the most confident first. They’re the easiest to get a good photo from and you can then show the others so they realise they’re going to look great and it’s really not the terrifying ordeal they might think its going to be! In this case Rob, the new President, was the obvious target. After seeing him grinning out from the back of the camera the others had no problems jumping in for their photos.

Once we were done with the studio it was on to the location portraits. For each of the Sabs I’d tried to find locations that were both recognisable as within the University and reflected something about their role – some were definitely more tenuously linked than others, but I think for the most part I managed!

UBU President Rob Griffiths - outside the Students' Union building

Again Rob was first up. This time because, as UBU President, I wanted to photograph him with the Union building itself as a backdrop and that meant we had to travel no further than just outside the front entrance.

Ellie Williams - Vice President Community

Ellie Williams – Vice President Community

Next was Ellie Williams, VP Community, who I placed with the distinctive Victoria Rooms fountains and the Triangle beyond to give a connection with the city itself. (It’s actually a backdrop I’ve used before for a portrait that was part of a campaign with Bristol Entrepreneurs – I might have to dig those out for a future blog post from the archives!)

CW from top left: Alessandra Berti - VP Welfare & Equality, Hannah Pollak - VP Sport & Health, Tom Flynn - VP Education, Imogen Palmer - VP Activities

CW from top left: Alessandra Berti – VP Welfare & Equality, Hannah Pollak – VP Sport & Health, Tom Flynn – VP Education, Imogen Palmer – VP Activities

Hannah’s role as VP Sport & Health made the University Gym an obvious location for her and as VP Education it made sense to have Tom Flynn outside the Wills Memorial Building – the University’s oldest and most well known structure. Alessandra I photographed in front of an art installation of mirrors in Royal Fort Gardens – it’s an easily recognisable landmark within the campus and I liked the play on ‘reflection’ with her position of VP Welfare & Equality where one of her remits is to oversee the accountability of Union and student policies. (I did say some of the location connections were pretty tenuous!) With Imogen I have to admit I simply couldn’t think of another recognisable location within the University grounds that said ‘Activities’ – so instead we took advantage of another good angle in Royal Fort Gardens and just used that!

Group photo of the 2013/14 UBU Sabbatical Officers

Finally on our way back to the Union I took several group photos in various locations – of which my favourite is the one above. Again in front of the Victoria Rooms – but facing in the opposite direction to the individual shot of Ellie I’d taken earlier.

I also couldn’t resist setting up this final shot with Rob appearing to be telling the others off for climbing the statue. I’m not sure it’s likely to be used by UBU – but the Sabs enjoyed taking it and if nothing else I think it sums them up as a group pretty well!

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Edit: For the next year you’ll be able to see some of the studio photos as they were used on the UBU website here: http://www.ubu.org.uk/officers/

Recent Work | Kristen

JamieCorbinPhotography_Portrait_Kristen_4

The other day I had a quick shoot with Kristen. She’s thinking about getting into modelling and wanted to have a few photos taken so she can start putting together a portfolio.

Now – I’m not a fashion photographer! As a portrait photographer I do pay vague attention to the fashion world and surprisingly (despite appearances – you’ll usually find me in a scruffy pair of jeans and a T if I can get away with it!) tend to have a fairly good idea of current trends. But when I make an image I’m far more interested in the people in my photos than the clothes they’re wearing and to be a fashion photographer you have to LOVE fashion – and I love people – that’s why I’m a people photographer!

However for Kristen, who’s just starting out and yet to really work out what area of modelling she wants to get into, a few clean and simple portraits were a perfect way to get the ball rolling and show people what she really looks like. Time was tight, we only had an hour and particularly when you’re new to being photographed it always takes time to warm up and really get into it, but Kristen was great and we went through a few looks in quick succession. These were the results!

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